Author's Note: So... fair warning. This is a story with absolutely no explicit sex! Some may ask, why publish a non-erotic story on an erotic story site? It's a fair question. For me, I set out writing this to see if I had it in me to write a story that didn't need sex in order to work. I liked the end effort and considering I have fans on this site that seem to really like my work, I figured I'd put it up here and see if they took to it the way that I have! Now, I'll step down off of my soapbox, and just simply thank you for your time and the support this community has shown me with the final wish that I hope you enjoy!
Acknowledgement: I want to send out a special thank you to my editor Stattion, who really helped me with this project. I have been working with him now on several different novels and when he asked me to send him some of my other works I sent him this story with the disclaimer that it wasn't done, and that he would hate it. To my surprise he enjoyed it and I have to say he helped me to work out the ending and added to my work to make me make much better choices about how it ended. Without his support and energy I would have probably never finished it!
Chapter 1
For our one month anniversary, Alyssa had bought me this stupid little ceramic bear. He fit in the palm of your hand, nothing big, nothing fancy. He was a cutesy little affectation, not like a real bear, but more like a ceramic version of a teddy bear. He was sitting on his butt, an ice cream cone in his little hand, or paw, whatever you wanted to call it. He had a little dopy smile on his face, little yellow bow tie, tied around his neck. We had been out at a carnival, and she had seen it at this little booth as we walked past and just bought it for me on the spur of the moment.
She handed it to me with a little shy smile on her face, "Happy anniversary." She mumbled as she handed it to me, like she was self-conscious about it, like maybe I'd look at it and say, 'this is stupid', or I'd tell her it wasn't enough...
It was one of those cutesy little moments all couples seem to have. One little innocuous moment that either meant nothing, or everything depending on the couple.
I was a little disappointed to see him sail across the room at my head...
I was even more disappointed to see him shatter into a million pieces as I ducked him. I felt the hundreds of sharp little pieces of him bounce around the room, trying desperately to shred my flesh. I held my arm up over my face, deciding to sacrifice the arm to save my face. It's not much of a face, but it's all I have...
The bitch of it all was it was Alyssa that had thrown him at me...
Guess she hadn't liked that bear as much as I had.
"I know you're fucking around on me!" She screamed.
Sad thing was, I wasn't fucking around on her...
I'm stupid. I'm selfish. I'm really not much of a provider. I don't even like myself all that much...
One thing I am however, is loyal.
My cell phone, nestled into the front pocket of my jeans, started ringing again. The shrill air raid siren that I had made my ring tone belting out into the room. I was really starting to regret that ringtone, though, right now, with a furious, and semi-crazy woman shredding my belongings as she screamed at me like a banshee, an emergency air raid siren might be a little more appropriate than I was willing to admit to myself...
Alyssa was short, maybe five-five to my full six feet. She was a spark plug, however, and she knew how to make the most of what god had given her. What she lacked in intimidation factor, she more than made up for in sheer voluminous energy. At the sound of my phone going off, the third time in as many minutes she got right up in my face.
"Why don't you want to answer your phone? Is it your whore calling?" She sneered into my face.
Part of me wanted to tell her I didn't answer the phone because I didn't want to throw any more gasoline on the fire of her insanity... there were plenty more breakable items in my house and her flinging them around willy-nilly probably wasn't doing me any favors both with the neighbors, and in terms of my security deposit...
Considering she had lost so much control that she was hurling ceramic bears around the room... I decided it was better, and more than likely quite a bit smarter, to keep my mouth shut.
She blew up like this about once every two weeks. One time it would be her insistence I was cheating on her. The next that I was cheating on her because I had watched some porn. The time after that, I wasn't working enough. The time after that, I worked too much.
One time she had blown up like this because there were no steaks in the freezer...
I was beginning to think she might be a little crazy.
Of course, I had to blame myself at least a little, after all, what does that say about me? I'm dating a chick that flips out and throws ceramic bears around the room.
Maybe my mental state wasn't one to be casting aspersions...
She held her arms out wide, "What, are you not man enough to tell me? You can't just admit, you're not heading off to class, or off to work? I know you've got some little bitch on the side. What does she have that I don't? She sucks dick a little better?" Her voice grew taunting, cruel, "Come on, be a man, tell me!"
I considered for a moment the mental picture that flashed through my head, had I had a side piece and how the conversation with Alyssa would go if I told her that girl gave better head...
She pushed me hard in the chest, shoving me back into the wall.
A detached part of my mind screamed to smack her one. To let her know that she could yell, and scream, and accuse me of whatever she wanted to, because I really didn't care about any of that bullshit. She could throw tantrums, and even little ceramic bears at my head, but she needed to keep her hands off of me.
I pushed that part down. Pushed it down way deep.
I wasn't much of a man, but I wasn't a man that had ever laid a hand on a woman in anger, and I wasn't about to start because Alyssa went through a fit of jealous rage.
Course, for that matter, I wasn't much of a man of anger. Most things that pissed other people off, just made me sad for them. I just didn't seem to have that gene that made people go crazy and start throwing things. I had never had that fit where I just needed to break something to make myself feel better. Some people however, seemed to have that gene in spades...
Take Alyssa here...
We had started dating about six months ago. At first, it had been wonderful. We got along great. She had a terrific sense of humor, was fun loving and had a body to die for. She seemed really into me. She had serious commitment issues, but that was okay. She wanted our relationship to run like a sprint. In her mind at six months we should be living together. Inside a year, married. By year two, a kid on the way. Six months had come and gone, and there was no invitation to move in. Part of that was my desire to take things slowly... part of it was a desire to have a moments peace where I didn't have to worry about something getting thrown at my head... hell, if I'm being completely honest, part of it was that I still didn't really know how I felt about Alyssa...
A part of me loved how dedicated she was to mapping her life out. How dedicated she was to making that life materialize for her. Another part of me was absolutely disgusted how upset she got when things didn't work out for her exactly the way she wanted them to. The largest part of me however, was simply tired of having to constantly be on the defensive about her insane insecurity issues...
Problem was, I was not into the whirlwind marriage. I didn't want to just slip a ring on the first girl that I liked, hell, even one that I loved. I wasn't that guy that just threw myself into something. I took my time with things. I wanted to make sure that the girl I married was the one I was going to be with for the rest of my life. It was a big commitment, and not just financially, but in time as well. I had promised myself that I would get married once, and only once. If I couldn't make it work out, that was my one shot at it.
Seemed like the more time passed, the more Alyssa and I weren't going to see eye to eye...
She was screaming something incoherent at me. Truth was, she was suddenly so small and boring. In my mind, I decided this was the last time she was going to scream at me. The last time she was going to throw something at me. The very last time she was going to lay her hands on me.
I felt my eyes darken, my breath shallow, the heavy muscles in my shoulder and neck bunch.
I am not an angry man. In fact, I can only think of a couple of times in my entire life that I was ever truly angry. I am not a violent man. What I am, however, is big, and when roused I think I come across as an angry grizzly bear. It makes me intimidating, and that got me pretty far in the world when it came to making a crazy person calm right the fuck down...
In fact, I had observed, most angry people were like angry dogs. They made a lot of very big sound, but when faced with a threat that seemed like it was going to bite back, they started to have some serious doubts... and they got a whole lot more reasonable very quickly.
